In “American Barbecue’s European Adventure,” Gravy reporter Eve Troeh takes us to meet restaurateurs in Prague, Czech Republic (Big Smokers) and Berlin, Germany (Big Stuff Smoked BBQ) who have gone to great lengths to import the techniques and equipment needed to bring American barbecue to their communities. Along with developing their own recipes, working closely with suppliers to select the right breeds and cuts of meat, and perfecting their overnight smoking process, they have also had to cultivate an understanding of and appreciation for BBQ among their customers.

While “low and slow” smoked barbecue may seem ubiquitous in the United States, it takes some translating when it crosses the pond into an entirely different culinary context. Adrian Miller, author of the book Black Smoke, which chronicles Black contributions to American barbecue, helps explain what makes American barbecue unique—and even unexpected—in other parts of the world. And while Czech and German immigrants contributed to the early formation of barbecue in central Texas and other Southern enclaves, the reception of American barbecue abroad today shows that its history is not a straight line from the 1800s to now. Instead, it’s a conversation that has crossed oceans and generations in a longstanding back-and-forth that can be seen and tasted on modern-day trays of brisket, pulled pork, sausage, and more.

At Big Smokers in Prague, chefs Sylvie Jackson and Tomas Oujezdsky show guests that burnt ends—though they may sound suspect—are actually delicious. And at Berlin’s Big Stuff Smoked BBQ, Tobias Bürger introduces customers to a hot sandwich. The popularity of Southern-style “low and slow” barbecue seems to know no bounds, and in this episode, Troeh follows the journey of that smoking tradition across the Atlantic Ocean.

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In Highland County, Virginia, there are more trees than people. Specifically, the County is rich in sugar maples, the trees whose sap produces maple syrup.

Better known as a “northern” sweetener, maple syrup is something that Highland County residents have been producing for decades—likely as early as the County was first settled in the mid-1700s. They learned the practice from local Indigenous tribes, who took part in tapping trees themselves.

In “Sap's Rising in Highland County, Virginia,” Gravy reporter Sarah Jessee explores Highland County maple syrup production in the past and present, and discusses how the County’s syrup-making might change in the future.

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Today, Gravy shares with you the Real Organic Podcast, the award-winning “Best Sustainability, Environment & Climate Podcast” produced by the Real Organic Project.

Recently named one of the "best climate podcasts" by Earth.org, the Real Organic Podcast uncovers the forces reshaping organic food–like how corporate lobbying is redefining what “organic” means and how industry use of new terms like “regenerative” and “hydroponics” are not really organic. Hosted by Linley Dixon and Dave Chapman, each episode features deep conversations with farmers, scientists, chefs, and journalists fighting to keep organic food honest.

Like today’s episode with Barbara Kingsolver, where she reflects on her lifelong connection to food, her friendship with Joan Gussow, and the spiritual, cultural, and political meaning of how we eat. Fun fact—Joan was the mother of Adam Gussow, a scholar and professor in Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi! 

If you enjoy today’s episode, be sure to check out the Real Organic Podcast, available on your favorite podcast app. And tell them, Gravy sent you! 

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In “Sniffing Out American Truffles,” Gravy reporter Irina Zhorov explores truffle production in the U.S.—and how the South is emerging as a hub. 

Truffle production in the U.S. is a young industry. Commercial cultivation started in the 1980s. Truffles are a complicated business. When you’re farming truffles, what you’re really growing is trees. The truffles are fungi that grow on tree roots. The tree and the fungi work synergistically, the tree providing sugars to the fungi for nourishment and the fungi helping the roots reach further into the soil to absorb more nutrients. For this relationship to work well, and for truffles to flourish, the type of tree and fungi must be a good match, the soil ought to be of sufficiently high pH, and weather and moisture need to be suitable.

Europeans, particularly in Italy and France, figured out the formula to make this complex system function. Truffle orchards once abounded on the continent. World Wars I and II, as well as changing land use, destroyed many of those operations, but the industry there is still established. When American farmers began to seed their truffle orchards, most of them imported European truffle varieties on European trees. European truffles are big and delicious, and want-to be growers knew that system worked. But European trees have struggled in North America; they lack defenses for local pests, and many of the early orchards have died out.

An operation in North Carolina, Burwell Farms, tried something different. They inoculated native loblolly pines with the European bianchetto truffle variety. They're now the most productive truffle orchard in the United States, but they still can't keep up with growing demand.

As the industry matures, there are also attempts to cultivate native truffle varieties, like the Appalachian truffle, the Blue Ridge truffle, and other newly discovered species. And there's growing interest in foraging for native truffles, too. The industry is becoming increasingly attuned to local varieties and possibilities to make this luxurious product our own.

In this episode of Gravy, Zhorov visits Burwell Farms and follows their dogs at work harvesting truffles. We hear from Burwell Farms' Jeffrey Coker; Margaret Townsend, president of the North American Truffle Growers Association and owner of NewTown Truffiere; chef Joe Kindred on what excites him about local truffles; and North Carolina extension agents Katie Learn and Jeanine Davis on local varieties.

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In “Virginia Has the Blue Catfish Blues,”Gravy reporter Anya Groner takes listeners to the Chesapeake Bay, where, over the past decade, invasive blue catfish have derailed the ecosystem in the East Coast’s largest fish nursery.

Native to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River basins, blue catfish were first stocked in the bay’s tributary rivers in the 1970s to provide a new trophy fish for recreational anglers. At the time, no one predicted that a freshwater catfish could make its way into the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay, much less outcompete native crabs, oysters, and fish. The impact has been devastating for the environment and for the seafood industry. Generational watermen are going out of business, and most of the fishmongers who buy and process their catch have shut their doors.

Yet, Dr. Michael Schwarz, associate director of Virginia Tech's Seafood and Agricultural Research & Extension Center, says there’s a lucrative way to manage the population of this expanding apex predator and reinvigorate the seafood industry.  Blue catfish happen to be delicious. Studies show that managed correctly, a blue catfish fishery could have an economic impact of $1.1 billion and create 7,000 new jobs.

“ The easiest solution for anything is to eat it,” says Kyle Rowley, the chief operating officer of Skrimp Shack, a fourteen-restaurant franchise in Virginia and North Carolina. As a topwater predator, blue catfish don’t have the muddy flavor sometimes associated with farmed catfish. And Rowley says, they fry beautifully. Three years ago, he added blue catfish to Skrimp Shack’s menu. “We're doing something right that is actually helping our fellow Virginians, and we enjoy that.”

But building a market for an invasive species is an inherent conflict of interest, says Dr. Mary Fabrizio, a biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “Basically you're starting the fishery to put itself out of business,” she says. If the fishery is as lucrative as some predict it can be, the goal could switch from shrinking the population to maintaining it. Fabrizio’s computer models show that unless a very high number of catfish are pulled from the bay, culling catfish won’t rejuvenate native fish.

Join Groner as she travels from the docks of the Chesapeake Bay to marine labs and restaurants, asking watermen, fishmongers, scientists, and restaurateurs to ask what it will take to build a blue catfish market and whether it’s possible to balance the needs of the seafood industry and the ecosystem.

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In “A Taste of the Other Georgia in Pensacola,” Gravy reporter Martin Padgett ventures to Pensacola to sample a bit of Georgia—a Georgia much further away than the five-hour car ride to Atlanta.

Florida’s Gulf Coast brings to mind pictures of crystal-sand beaches and the Navy’s Blue Angels, but until recently, it hasn’t been known as a haven for global food. That’s begun to change, and as Pensacola has begun to grow out of its small-town roots, Chef George Lazi has brought a new cuisine to the table, along with a symbol of hospitality.

Lazi grew up in Soviet Georgia, but when the USSR collapsed in 1991 and Georgia declared independence, the childhood he knew disappeared. When Georgia’s economy imploded, families would

While he drinks very strong espresso with Lazi at the chef’s Pearl & Horn restaurant in Pensacola, Padgett learns how the chef’s family has brought its story to an unclaimed corner of the South. The traditional southern foodstuffs like red snapper are the stars on the menu—only here they’re paired with khmeli suneli, a Georgian spice that blends fenugreek, coriander, and marigold. And if you look around Pearl &

In this episode, Gravy asks about the items we keep and those we leave behind, while exploring how we meld one culture into another through immigration—and what that means to the ever-changing South.

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Atlanta can seem like it’s a very long way from the oystering communities in Florida’s Panhandle. There are, in fact, hundreds of miles between them. But there are ways even distant places are intimately connected, perhaps more intimately than you’d guess. And when one of those places is in trouble, those connections get revealed.

This is the story of what’s happening to the oysters in Apalachicola Bay, and why that has inspired interstate legal battles—even a Supreme Court lawsuit. It’s also the story of what a place whose whole identity revolves around seafood does, when that seafood is threatened.

The audio from oysterman A.L. Quick was gathered in 2006 as part of the Southern Foodways Alliance oral history project on Florida's Forgotten Coast. You can listen to that oral history and more than a dozen others with oystermen and other residents of Franklin County at southernfoodways.org.

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Order a catfish po-boy or a few pounds of crawfish in Acadiana any Friday between Mardi Gras and Easter, and you may be surprised to learn that your delight is another person’s sacrifice. The Catholic tradition of abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent is alive and well in Southwest Louisiana, a region where more than a third identify as Catholic. Thanks to the long list of Catholic churches and restaurants that roll out an array of delectable seafood options on Lenten Fridays, it’s not much of a burden. St. Francis of Assisi in Breaux Bridge and the Knights of Columbus Council at St. Pius X in Lafayette both have long-standing Lenten fish fry traditions that bring together their communities and welcome anyone hungry for fried catfish, regardless of religion. Olde Tyme Grocery in Lafayette sells close to 2,300 seafood po-boys during the 40-day period. Religious abstinence never tasted so good. 

The episode was reported and produced by Sarah Holtz.

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In “Trade, Taste, and the Evolving Tale of Texas Whiskey,” Gravy reporter Evan Stern visits the Lone Star State to get a taste of a growing movement: Texas whiskey.

Given the importance of saloons in cowboy culture and western mythology, one might think Texas whiskey has a long and storied history. But though Texans have always had a fondness for the demon drink, as a legal industry, Texas whiskey is barely even twenty years old. Despite this youth, however, its growth has been explosive. While as recently as 2010, the state claimed a mere two whiskey distilleries, that number now hovers around sixty and is growing. Yet as makers like Still Austin, Balcones, and Garrison Brothers have garnered awards and drawn national attention, its identity is still being discovered and remains challenging to define. In an increasingly saturated market, one also can’t help but wonder: Is Texas whiskey on the cusp of something big, or will it bust?

Through visits to two “grain to glass” distilleries, Stern learns of the industry’s origins from Dan Garrison. The first licensed whiskey maker in modern Texas, Garrison tells of the challenges he faced aging bourbon in the torrid Hill Country and how his process has matured since his days as an early pioneer. Gravy also hears about the challenges regional distillers have faced in distinguishing their brands in a saturated market from sommelier Daniel Whittington, while Kentucky-based spirits author Fred Minnick argues that Texans’ openness to experimentation has helped shift the flavor narrative of American whiskey. Illustrating this is John Evans who, in a move that could be considered unorthodox, has chosen to use oats in a mash bill he developed himself. A fifth-generation farmer, he opened Wilson Valley Mercantile on his family’s historic property after thinking: “Why not make corn worth more by selling it as whiskey?” Featuring spirits distilled from grains raised entirely onsite, he shares his journey as an independent upstart. 

In these conversations, Gravy asks questions about process and flavor, while exploring how Texas’s emergence reflects the American craft movement and pondering what its future could mean for the drinking world as a whole.

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In “Fruitcake in Space,” Gravy reporter Bronwen Wyatt explores a bizarre footnote in the annals of human space travel. In 1968, a scientist at a military research facility developed a very unusual recipe: a nutritionally-fortified fruitcake designed as an emergency ration for astronauts. It might be easy to dismiss this fruitcake, but we’re here to argue that it’s part of a larger story—one that takes us from the early days of NASA’s space program to our current quest for Mars. Wyatt investigates the importance of safe preservation techniques in space, how NASA determines what food astronauts will actually eat, and why fruitcake actually makes perfect sense as an emergency ration.

In an archival interview from 1966, dietician Mary Klicka at the Natick Laboratory Army Research, Development, and Engineering Center points to the unique challenges of preparing acceptable menus for long-term space travel. Wyatt speaks to Vickie Kloeris, who managed NASA’s food systems for nearly thirty years from the laboratory at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Jennifer Levasseur, a curator specializing in food at the Air and Space Museum. Finally, retired astronaut Cady Coleman shares her perspective on dining in orbit. Coleman, who volunteered for the role of "food czar" on the International Space Station, tells how food becomes a form of currency and a tool for building camaraderie among astronauts.

Kloeris, Levasseur, and Coleman emphasize that dining space is about more than the mechanical function of obtaining enough calories to survive. Even in the most barren environments, our cultural drive to bond over food is a connection to our lives on earth and part of what makes us human. The selection and preparation of food—work that is often dismissed as inconsequential domestic labor—is a crucial part of the success of any mission in space.

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